The Theory of Greek Tragedy 27 
such names is enough to show how elemental is the substance of 
Greek tragedy and how helplessly its composure depends, not 
upon this crude and saguinary material, but upon the spirit with 
which it was animated and the ideas with which it was informed. 
As mere stuff its superiority over the Nibelungen Lied and 
Beowulf is not great. As drama its superiority consists in the 
profound moral significance with which the Greek had imbued 
it. And in this case the merit belongs to the race as well as the 
dramatist, for whose hand it was partly prepared before he 
touched it. It was the genius of the people which had fitted 
these sinister old legends for tragic treatment by deepening their 
content and suggestion. In themselves they are like windows 
opening upon a remote and savage antiquity, through which it 
is still possible to catch a glimpse of wild irrational powers mov- 
ing obscurely in the gloom, of the fitful workings of casualty and 
chance—perfidies of nature and miscarriages of reason. ‘Con- 
sider only the labyrinth of Oedipus or the ambages of Jon. 
These were the subjects that gave the Greek his opportunity. 
He was grappling with tremendous problems, he was struggling 
for a foothold on the brink of unreason, he was confronting the 
irresponsible demonic forces of creation, he was wrestling for 
the secrets of destiny; and the groundwork of his tragedy was 
vast, portentous, and preternatural. 
And yet out of all this confusion and anarchy there seemed to 
be something slowly shaping—an event, an issue, a fate—direct- 
ing itself more or less vaguely, in the midst of uncertainty and 
dread, to some far off and indistinguishable end. Careless of 
guilt and innocence, heedlessness and premeditation, it spared one 
-and spoiled another indifferently; it required the child of its 
parents and the mother of her son; it snared alike the crafty and 
the unawary, the pious and the scoffer. Unprognosticable, it 
did not want for records: whatever came to pass, bore witness 
to its passage; in particular, its trail lay over certain great houses 
and illustrious families. Capricious as its dealings with the 
individual might seem, it was impossible in the long run to deny 
them a kind of coherence or rough and ready logic. Was it pos- 
sible to go still farther: in spite of misleading appearances and 
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